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Subsequently, the Human Federation parliament enacted the most draconian wartime control act in history, citing the need to "cope with the imminent threat of extraterrestrial civilization invasion."
The decree announced the total abolition of private ownership.
All bank deposits, real estate, and means of production belonging to individuals and enterprises worldwide were confiscated without compensation and placed under the ownership of the Human Federation.
A strict real-time rationing system was implemented for food and daily necessities.
Every morning, ordinary citizens could only take the digital ID cards issued by the Human Federation and wait in long lines for several hours to receive a ration barely sufficient to maintain vital signs.
Immediately after, the President of the Human Federation announced a crazy construction plan in a full-channel broadcast.
In order to build an interstellar fleet and space stations capable of resisting alien aggression, the Human Federation would select sites globally to construct one hundred heavy-duty super military-industrial complex factories.
The decree stipulated that all male and female citizens aged between eighteen and sixty worldwide must be subject to mandatory labor assignment.
Batch after batch of people were stripped of their original jobs and lives, transported like livestock to those super factories rising from the ground.
They performed up to sixteen hours of high-intensity manual labor every day, with no holidays, no salary, and only the minimum rations to sustain survival.
Once this move was announced, the whole World was in an uproar.
How was this forming a Human Federation? This was clearly casting billions of people directly into a slave society!
People finally realized the seriousness of the matter.
This was not a change of regime at all; it was a unilateral enslavement.
Escape!
This was the only thought in everyone's mind.
Countless refugees, dragging their families along, surged toward airports, ports, and borders.
Their only destination was America, which, although it had implemented high-pressure new policies, had at least not deprived the public of the hope of survival.
But now, everything was too late.
The Human Federation government had already ordered a total blockade of all exit routes, suspended all international civil aviation flights indefinitely, and detained all civilian vessels.
"It is forbidden for anyone to leave the country. For those who force their way out, we do not rule out the use of lethal force to intercept."
The cold broadcast played in a loop at every border crossing.
Cargo ships filled with refugees attempting to smuggle themselves across the Atlantic Ocean under the cover of night were, without exception, blown to pieces by the Federation's missiles.
Fire lit up the night surface, and wreckage and corpses floated with the waves.
The federal government used the most extreme force to declare the ban to the whole World: Everyone is forbidden to leave. Those who force their way out will be killed without mercy.
Now, all armed forces were firmly in the hands of the Skrulls, making all rebels tremble with fear.
Those non-official organizations that once possessed armed forces, and those religious leaders who were usually high and mighty, surprisingly chose to remain silent in unison, and even demanded that their followers submit to the Federation's rule.
Under the inaction of the leaders and the massacre of the Federation, the old social beliefs and institutional systems were forcibly overthrown.
The human social system under the Human Federation had miraculously completed a top-down structural reconstruction in just one month.
Countless ordinary people, wearing gray labor uniforms, stood in long lines and, under the surveillance of soldiers holding guns, numbly walked into those super factories rising from the ground.
They had to perform sixteen hours of high-intensity manual labor every day, in exchange for only a piece of dry, hard synthetic protein biscuit and a cup of murky Water.
Any slight delay in movement would be met with the ruthless whipping of the overseer.
Wails were heard everywhere, and the people lived in misery.
...
Meanwhile, on the other side of Earth.
The people of the XYZ Country and America saw the tragic state of the outside World through the videos that had been leaked.
People watched the footage of those sallow-faced masses collapsing from exhaustion during heavy work, or being shot dead in the street for attempting to escape.
Everyone felt a chill running down their spines.
"My God... those people are simply suffering from massacre!"
A U.S. netizen posted on Twitter, attaching a photo of corpses strewn across the streets of Paris.
"Look at that stuff they eat every day; my dog wouldn't even eat it!"
"It's too terrifying! What kind of monsters is that Human Federation made of? How could they deal such a vicious blow to their own kind?!"
"Thank you, President Ellis! Thank you, Vought!" A bankrupt Wall Street financial executive was currently wearing a brand-new work uniform, munching on a steaming hot hamburger in a Vought assembly plant.
"Although they confiscated my Villa and yacht, at least I can eat steak every day now, and I can still come home from work to hug my children!"
"That's right! Look at the outside World, what is money worth? As long as we can live, as long as we aren't slaves, the new policy is the greatest gospel!"
On one hand, they felt incomparably angry at the atrocities of the Human Federation, cursing those inhumane dictators.
On the other hand, they felt incomparably fortunate in their hearts, glad that they were standing on this land protected by Vought.
Even those wealthy people who had been levied with high taxes suddenly felt that the tough-handed President Ellis had become much more likable.
...
Just as the people of the Federation were struggling in the abyss of despair, letting out wails of grief.
A silent digital storm suddenly swept across the global network.
One day at noon.
The mobile phones in people's pockets suddenly lit up uncontrollably.
The outdoor electronic screens on both sides of the street that originally scrolled with Federation propaganda slogans, the video walls in shopping malls, and even the tactical terminals on the bodies of the federal guards supervising people working in the factories.
It was as if they had been collectively hacked, as all screens spontaneously played a high-definition video at the same time.
People stopped their work in shock, and the soldiers patrolling the streets also looked at the screens in confusion.
Because in the video, everyone saw those familiar faces that issued orders on television every day.
There was the Human Federation President Pierre Carson, the supreme Officer who commanded countless troops, the religious leaders who called on followers to accept suffering, and the heads of various important departments.
These big shots who stood at the very top of the Federation's power pyramid and decided the life and death of billions of people.
At this moment, they were actually kneeling in unison to one person!
And when the camera angle slowly turned to focus on the person sitting on the high-backed chair, accepting the worship of the human leaders.
At this moment, everyone felt their hearts stop.
Because the person sitting in the top seat... did not look like a human at all!
He had green, rough skin, sharp ears like a goblin, a complete freak!
The whole World was in an uproar.
"Are these aliens?!"
"Our President... is kneeling to an alien?!"
Countless people exclaimed.
However, the video did not end.
The final segment of the video was even more horrifying, and something that even destroyed human sanity happened.